Our Freebie Trip at Half Price Books

The girls and I went to Half Price Books today to find out more about their free summer reading program. It was great! I'd never been there before, so I was surprised at how big and well laid out everything was. They also have a wide selection of not only books, but also movies, software, and music (even records! and there were several people looking through them!). They have books about almost any topic, including some workbooks and curriculum, which I'll have to browse more next week.

I walked into the store and right by the door and registers there were bookmarks like these for the summer reading program. I was able to fill our first set out right away and redeem them for our first week of gift cards! Then the girls and I went shopping while the employees looked through the 2 large (heavy!) bags of books I had brought in to sell.

First we checked out the clearance section and found an animated "The King and I" movie for $3! We like musicals, so we were excited! Then we went to the children's section (and ran into a friend from church!). I was very pleasantly surprised to find SO MANY options that the kids would have to choose from for under $3. The problem only came in deciding which ones to buy!

Now, to answer some questions. Preschoolers are eligible for the program as long as you read to them for 15 minutes a day. The form asks for age and grade, but for the littles you can put "PreK" for their grade. You can only use one $3 gift card per transaction, so for multiple kids you will have to do multiple transactions. This is more fun for the kids anyway because they can put their purchases and gift card up on the counter to pay for it themselves. If your purchase is less than $3, you won't get change, but you don't have to make a purchase OVER $3 if you are okay with not getting change. Make sense?

And now for the take-away!
Amelia Bedelia book: $0.75
First Phonics book with letter wheel: $1.98
LeapFrog Phonics DVD: $1 (clearance)
Angelina Ballerina hardcover book: $2
Princess Word Find book: $1.98
D.W. (Arthur) book: $0.98
The King and I animated DVD: $3 (clearance)

The girls were very happy with their purchases, and we also stopped at the mall so I could get my Aerie freebie for June, some floral post-it notes (pictured bottom left). So for this trip, we paid $0 and Half-Price Books paid me $5 for the books I brought in! I really like this store! :-)